Thursday, 27 July 2017

The Gallery of Unfinished Girls by Lauren Karcz

I received an advance copy of this book for free. Thanks to HarperCollins and Edelweiss.

Blurb (from Goodreads):

Mercedes Moreno is an
artist. At least, she thinks she could be, even though she hasn't been
able to paint anything worthwhile since her award-winning piece Food
Poisoning #1 last year.

Her lack of inspiration might be because
her abuela is lying comatose in faraway Puerto Rico after suffering a
stroke. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend,
Victoria, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings.

Despite
Mercedes’s creative block, art starts to show up in unexpected ways. A
piano appears on her front lawn one morning, and a mysterious new
neighbor invites Mercedes to paint with her at the Red Mangrove Estate.

At
the Estate, Mercedes can create in ways she never has before. She can
share her deepest secrets and feel safe. But Mercedes can't take
anything out of the Estate, including her new-found clarity. As her life
continues to crumble around her, the Estate offers more solace than she
could hope for. But Mercedes can’t live both lives forever, and
ultimately she must choose between this perfect world of art and truth
and a much messier reality.

“The estate guides us to fulfil its needs,” Lilia says, “with art and music, structure and form, color and light. But it knows what you need, too.”

This was a YA magical realism story about a girl who was an artist, but had a bit of a creative block.Mercedes was an okay character although she seemed to lack focus a bit when it came to her art, so it was good for her when Lilia turned up to help her.The storyline in this was about Mercedes and her sister living alone for a short time while their mother went to look after their Abuela who was in a coma. Mercedes was having a bit of artist’s block, while her sister suddenly took to playing the piano that appeared in their garden one day. Then a new neighbour turned up – Lilia, who took Mercedes to an old building where she was able to paint, although the artwork couldn’t be taken out of the building without it disappearing. We also got a storyline about Mercedes having romantic feelings toward her best friend Victoria, but the story didn’t really focus on the romance. The ending to this was okay, but overall I found this to be quite an odd story. 6.25 out of 10